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By Solomon Smilack and Aria von
Elbe
August 9, 2005
The Japanese Pro Dinner Monday
night more resembled a typical evening at a Japanese izakaya than a gathering of
top professional go players. In fact, go didn't even come up in conversation
until the evening was well into the several varieties of beer. Instead, the men
discussed the two favorite Japanese pastimes, sports and alcohol. Among other
things, we discovered that there are over thirty varieties of Japanese sake
available in Seattle and that house poker rules once confused Sasaki sensei,
leading to the creation of a banana worth $50,000. You had to be there.
Maeda sensei discussed the state
of the Kansai Kiin baseball team, which he manages, and for which four of the
pros at the Congress play. They're all very proud that their team plays in the
Osaka Dome, the home field of the Hanshin Tigers. The Seattle Go Club's Frank
Fukuda is an avid mushroom hunter and is preparing for his upcoming mushroom
hunt in October, when a special variety of mushrooms appear. Sasaki sensei and
Sawada san discussed the pros and cons of marriage, and talked about how their
spouses feel about their international
travel.
As the bottles of Kirin and
Asahi beer emptied, we began to wonder if go would ever come up. The pros
grilled us on why Americans do some things differently, "Why does everyone put
so much ice in juice?" Sawada san quickly meshed the word ice with the Japanese
word sumimasen (I'm sorry) by apologizing with the first humorous quip of the
evening, "Aisumimasen" (Sorry for the ice). This spurred a series of
joke-telling, all in Japanese, of course.
Go finally made an appearance at
8:15, when the name "Touya Akira" floated across the table and were surprised to
hear the pros talking about Hikaru no Go. They were amazed at the series'
effects, noting how it has encouraged a return to proper manners among young
players. Nakayama sensei regaled us with a classic story about Tetsuya Kiyonari,
who turned shodan over 25 years ago, and was keeping time for a professional
game when Yutaka Shiraishi came back from lunch five minutes late. Yutaka
apologized for being late and then proceeded to chide Kiyonari for not being
more strict in discouraging tardiness. That evening, Kiyonari sat by Shiraishi
and counted down the dinner break as if it was byo-yomi.
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